LinkedIn has publicly spurned Microsoft by creating a new email-contact-identification app on Apple's iPhone which doesn't integrate with Redmond's Exchange email software.
The company's mobile application - dubbed Intro - was debuted by LinkedIn on Wednesday, as it shrugged off reports of an hour-long outage with its service …

Good

Re: Good

Not to mention the recent "revamp" of their website which has significantly lowered its usability and user-friendliness. Perhaps it's all part of a cunning plan to push us all towards the mobile apps, 'cos the standard web portal took a real nosedive for actually sorting, collating and finding stuff within your contact-base.

LinkedIn did use to integrated with Outlook

Er... Is this not the same thing as Outlook Social connector for LinkedIn? As comes in the box with Outlook 2013, and a downloadable add-on for Outlook 2007/2010? It's integrated with windows Phone OS out the box as well. Perhaps that's why they've not bothered?

What am I missing here?

Re: What am I missing here?

But given the tone and headline of the article there is already phone integration at OS level on Windows Phone and as mentioned Outlook Social Connector does this for 2003 and up. It does seem that this time at least it's more catch up for Apple than a snub the other way.

Re: What am I missing here?

As far as I can tell the outlook social connector is something to integrate LinkedIn to your Outlook contact list. The article is about an iPhone app that doesn't talk to Outlook. Can you spot the difference?

"Linked-in is sh*t anyway. Not using it is more valuable than been know to have a profile."

But.. but.. but.. if you don't use linked in how can all those recruiters with those ever-so-interesting job opportunities mine your information, I mean individually read your profile and match a potential candidate with their ideal job?

And this only really matters...

Re: And this only really matters...

Come now, it is fun to watch people play business, not to mention an excellent heuristic of who to avoid.

I on the other hand can't wait for the day when I poach El Reg commentards who have demonstrated competence and post under their name or even StackOverflow users of note (have already helped a friend with the latter).

If you run a company mailserver it is probably worth understanding this...

...because users are encouraged to make LinkedIn a middleman between the mailserver and the user's iPhone so that they can insert LinkedIn contact information into the emails. If I was running email for a company I would put a block in to prevent Linked In connecting into the server as a user due to the security risk.

Re: If you run a company mailserver it is probably worth understanding this...

Noble.

. . . until a single influential user gets the boss's ear and it's all over. Or if, say, you support a recruitment firm.

If you have (or are) a CIO/CTO who understands the reasoning and can communicate that to the other C-levels and justify the decision then you are in luck. If your boss doesn't have the knowledge, the balls or the clout to carry the day then get ready to roll-out Chrome to your PCs (because Linked-In no longer considers IE when coding) and roll-back your hard-fought, well-planned and rigorously-tested security measures.

Best intentions are admirable and best practices should guide your decisions but in the end you just have to make it work as best you can and if it bothers you so much, look for another job.

After all, "managed the integration of key social-media platforms with core business systems" looks far better on your resume than "fired for refusing to do what I was told and implying the boss didn't know a mouse from a monitor".

Interestingly...

let

I once let Linkedin sync up with my iPhone contacts so that linkedin users' photos would be automatically imported to the iPhone and would show when the person rang and in the contacts menu.

Somewhere along the way it's all gone wrong and i've not bothered to fix it.

My dad's picture is that of a lady in marketing, my brother a 70 year old director and worst of all when my girlfriend calls it shows the photo of a fat guy I used to work with years ago. I get a few looks when my phone is on the table, it rigs and the image of a fat bearded UNIX admin pops up and I grab the phone and say 'hang on it's my girlfriend'.

Obvious Market Need

What is really needed is an app that finds all people who use LinkedIn, FB and the like and prevent them from communicating with you whilst simultaneously wiping traces of your contact info from their devices and the aforementioned companies' servers.

Bravo Linkedin....Bravo

http://www.bishopfox.com/blog/2013/10/linkedin-intro/

Nasty nasty nasty.

I would say that if this is correct then there is a good case to be made to block Linkedin in totality. As well as getting data encryption (not from a US based company either....I'd plumb for a German firm most likely) as standard in the business.